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WV Primary Results - Obama: 59%, Inmate No. 11593-051: 41%

President Obama has never been wildly popular in West Virginia, but Tuesday’s Democratic primary marked the state’s sharpest rejection of the president yet. A Texas prisoner, listed as Inmate No. 11593-051, received 69,766 votes, a surprising 41% of the total, showing that many West Virginians would vote for just about anyone other than Obama, regardless of their status as a felon. Obama still won the primary, with 59% of the vote.

Keith Judd, the prisoner in question, is currently serving a 17½-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana after being sentenced for extortion in an altercation with the University of New Mexico.

By receiving more than 15% of the vote in West Virginia, Judd is technically allowed at least one state delegate, though no one has yet stepped forward to head to the Democratic National Convention for him. Tuesday’s face-off wasn’t the first time both Judd and Obama have been on the ballot, though, as Judd finished third in the 2008 Idaho primary behind both Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton with 1.7% of the vote.

To be eligible for the ballot, all Judd needed to do was pay a $2,500 filing fee and fill out a “notarized certification of announcement,” along with meeting other residency and age requirements.

Both West Virginia’s Democratic and Republican primaries, it should be noted, are open to independent voters.

proj·ect
1. something that is contemplated, devised, or planned; plan; scheme.
2. a large or major undertaking, especially one involving considerable money, personnel, and equipment.
3. a specific task of investigation, especially in scholarship.
4. to propose, contemplate, or plan.
5. to throw, cast, or impel forward or onward.
6. to set forth or calculate (some future thing).
7. to extend or protrude beyond something else.
8. to use one's voice forcefully enough to be heard at a distance, as in a theater.
9. to produce a clear impression of one's thoughts, personality, role, etc.

Each state and party has its own rules for qualifying to be on a primary ballot, and West Virginia happens to have fairly lax standards.

Then again, even without a prison inmate running for office the average American voter doesn't have much of a choice; all too many politicians should be behind bars just as it is!

Amen to that. And whether Republican or Democrat, they're all cut from the same cloth. I loath 'party' politics. The system seems to bring out the worst in some people, and just serves to keep people divided. I'd like to see the party system abolished, and allow people to vote for the best 'person'--period!